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hospital
'Rule-of-Law Western Style': Israeli Assassination Squad Kills Three in Jenin Hospital
Ibn Sina hospital's medical director said the Palestinian men were "executed in cold blood."
Jan 30, 2024
A team of Israeli forces disguised as civilians and medical staff raided Ibn Sina hospital in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday and assassinated three Palestinians, claiming without providing evidence that they were using the facility as a hideout and planning an attack inspired by the Hamas-led October 7 assault.
Journalists on the ground report that there was no apparent attempt to arrest the three individuals, whom the Israeli military identified as Mohammed Jalamneh, Mohammed Ghazawi, and his brother Basel Ghazawi. Ibn Sina's medical director said the three men were "executed in cold blood."
Al Jazeera reported that "Hamas confirmed that Jalamneh was one of its members."
"The Jenin Brigade, which includes a number of Palestinian armed resistance groups, said in a statement that two of the three men were members of Islamic Jihad," the outlet added.
A hospital spokesperson told The Associated Press that 18-year-old Basel Ghazawi "had been a patient in the hospital since October with partial paralysis."
Security footage from the hospital shows Israeli forces dressed as civilian women and medical workers moving through a facility hallway and waiting area with assault rifles drawn.
#شاهد
لحظة اقتحام قوة خاصة من جيش الاحتلال تتنكر بلباس الطواقم الطبية مستشفى ابن سينا في #جنين واغتيال الشهداء محمد جلامنة وباسل ومحمد الغزاوي pic.twitter.com/6TwHEPb9NI
— Newpress | نيو برس (@NewpressPs) January 30, 2024
Citing Palestinian officials, AP reported that the Israeli forces "opened fire inside the wards" of the hospital, located in the West Bank city of Jenin.
Palestinian health officials "condemned the raid and called on the international community to pressure Israel's military to halt such operations in hospitals," AP added. "A hospital spokesperson said there was no exchange of fire, indicating that it was a targeted killing."
Hospitals have special protections under international law, but Israel has treated them as legitimate targets for military operations since October 7, endangering wounded patients and medical personnel by raiding and shelling the facilities at will.
Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister and co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, sardonically described the Israeli forces' Jenin hospital raid as "rule-of-law Western style" and rejected the notion that "you can kill anyone you like on a land that you are illegally occupying, brand him/her terrorist, and then vilify as antisemites the ancestors of everyone who questions your right to kill anyone you like on a land that you are illegally occupying."
Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford, reporting from Ramallah, said Tuesday that "the Israeli army often surrounds and in some instances has attacked the three Palestinian hospitals in Jenin during nightly raids on the city."
"But this is the first time they have entered a civilian medical facility in what seems to have been a well-planned, targeted assassination operation that Palestinian authorities are calling another violation of international law," said Stratford.
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Investigators Ready to Go, But Will US Consent to Hospital Bombing Probe?
'We need to know if the rules of war have changed,' says MSF
Oct 14, 2015
Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Wednesday are waiting for a response from the U.S. and Afghanistan to approve a formal investigation into the bombing of its charity hospital earlier this month.
MSF announced that a formal request had been made to the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) to investigate the U.S. military airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan, marking the first time the Commission has been activated since its inception in 1991 under the Geneva Conventions.
"The IHFFC stands ready to undertake an investigation but can only do so based on the consent of the concerned State or States," the commission wrote in a statement Wednesday.
It is unclear if the U.S. or Afghanistan will permit the investigation. MSF has consistently said it cannot rely on internal investigations by the U.S. Department of Defense, Afghan officials, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which are currently underway and previously called on both governments to allow for an independent probe of the October 3 bombing that killed 22 people, including patients and staff.
President Obama formally apologized to the medical charity, and the Pentagon has said it plans to give "condolence payments" to victims' families. Still, MSF international president Dr. Joanne Liu has maintained that the organization's biggest priority is an impartial inquiry into the airstrike.
"We have received apologies and condolences, but this is not enough. We are still in the dark about why a well-known hospital full of patients and medical staff was repeatedly bombarded for over an hour," Liu said Wednesday. "We need to understand what happened and why."
"We need to know if the rules of war have changed, not just for Kunduz, but for the safety of our teams working in frontline hospitals all over the world," Liu said.
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Pentagon Readies Payouts for Hospital Bombing, But Still Refuses Independent Probe
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has not responded directly, but on Monday reiterated its call for an independent investigation
Oct 12, 2015
While ignoring repeated calls for an independent inquiry, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it would make "condolence payments" to the families of victims of a U.S. airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, earlier this month, which killed 22 people.
The Pentagon made its announcement Saturday after two weeks of scrambling to solidify its narrative on the bombing. MSF has labeled the attack a war crime and consistently stated that the airstrike deliberately targeted the hospital, even after the medical charity circulated its coordinates to fighters on both sides.
As the New York Times explained in an article published Sunday, condolence payments are "a way for the United States, without admitting any wrongdoing, to compensate civilians who have been injured, lost a loved one or suffered property damage at the hands of the military."
Though the Pentagon refuses to make available a catalog or record of how often it makes such payments, the Times used public records and media reports to provide a few examples from recent years.
"The Department of Defense believes it is important to address the consequences of the tragic incident at the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan," said Pentagon spokesperson Peter Cook. He added that the department would also pay to fix the hospital, although MSF staff withdrew from Kunduz following the bombing.
MSF has not directly responded to the Pentagon's announcement. However, on Monday, the medical charity released a "photo story" of its hospital under attack, which included a series of images from MSF staff around the world holding up messages calling for an independent investigation into the bombing.
Currently, three probes are underway by the U.S. military, Afghan officials, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
However, following the attack, Doctors Without Borders international president Dr. Joanne Liu said that "given the inconsistencies in the U.S. and Afghan accounts.... We cannot rely on only internal military investigations by the U.S., NATO, and Afghan forces."
President Barack Obama called MSF officials last week to apologize personally for the airstrike, a rare move by a commander-in-chief. However, MSF rebuffed his statement and called again for the U.S. to consent to an investigation led by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC).
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